Florence Wrona Carter, 85, visits Hoyt Park where Saginaw city workers were preparing to install ice Thursday, Dec. 13. Carter, the last surviving sister, is the youngest of four Wrona sisters who were champion ice skaters in the 1940s. She used to skate at the park in her youth.Jeff Schrier | Mlive.com

SAGINAW, MI — Among the people cheering that a sheet of ice is returning to Hoyt Park for skating is Florence Wrona Carter, a Saginaw native and speedskating champion who trained at the park more than a half-century ago.

"Saginaw's speed skating queen, " Florence Wrona Carter, won the 440-yard dash at the 1945 National Outdoor Speed Skating Championships in St. Paul, Minn., placing second overall. Also known as "Saginaw's skating mother, " she won the 1946 state championship in Detroit, the same year she married Amien Carter. They have four children.

She defeated Detroit's widely-heralded North American Champion Lorraine Sabbe in an upset victory in the 1948 Michigan Gold Cup meet in Wyandotte. She won the state championship in 1950 in Alpena, finishing second that year in the Women's National Division in Minneapolis. In 1954, placed second in the North American Speed Skating Championship in Pittsfield, Mass.